Appreciation for Lin Kuei's mortal Kombat improvements

[cleeg]

While I really like the Ultimate MK II hack, I was always a little irked that the backgrounds from the first game appeared in it, that always felt a little tacked on somehow. Any plans to do MKII yourself after this Linkuei?

A more 'authentic' hack would be really nice, no disrespect to the original team of course.

[Allard]

+/- 24Mb in the actual stage of the project (with all the new graphics, voices, bios and endings).

Is this megabits or megabytes?

[cabear]

It's an amazing effort, it just shows what the Genesis can do with some work and love for the game!

[LinkueiBR]

I already have a MK II hack over Unlimited with some improved colors, fighters Y coordinates changes and some other details.
I probably will remove the MK1 stages (except Goros Lair) to add some pcm voices (Liu Kang Bicycle Kick voice for example) and improve some special moves to make some arcade combos more accessible like LiucKang jump kick+air fireball, Scorpion jump kick+teleport, jax jump kick + air gotcha....

About the actual size of the MK1 project: 24Mb+/-=3MB+/-

[EPSYLON EAGLE]

I love each update!

[Allard]

I already have a MK II hack over Unlimited with some improved colors, fighters Y coordinates changes and some other details.
I probably will remove the MK1 stages (except Goros Lair) to add some pcm voices (Liu Kang Bicycle Kick voice for example) and improve some special moves to make some arcade combos more accessible like LiucKang jump kick+air fireball, Scorpion jump kick+teleport, jax jump kick + air gotcha....

About the actual size of the MK1 project: 24Mb+/-=3MB+/-

Would it be possible to add back the D+LP?

[IrishNinja]

jesus christ, this is infinitely more impressive than what we got - props!

[cleeg]

Would it be possible to add back the D+LP?

Yes!

[NeoVamp]

I probably will remove the MK1 stages (except Goros Lair) to add some pcm voices

You actually made me revisit my old MKIIU files, so here is a fixed Johnny Cage bio. not sure if you can find any use for it. but you never know.
Originally I had converted both Cage bios, but Smoke only ended up using one.

this one contains a full background compared to the one in the game which has a cutout for Jacket Cage.
with this new approach you should be able to give Cage back both of his bios and save space (for some reason Cage has two bios, everybody else only has one)

https://imgur.com/a/tbX8xjI

Also, Smoke coded the biography to be randomized. but for some reason that just never worked for me.. not in Gens or Kega or on real hardware with my Mega Everdrive.
they always ran in the same order, so maybe its possible to put it back to normal arcade order?

[chilled]

well this impressive work proves again than the most crucial handicap on the system was NOT the color palettes but, besides the most obvious (tight schedules and coding skills), it was the rom space which seriously limited the end results. This one, SOTN, Asteborg and some huge romhacks seem to prove a point.

[turboxray]

well this impressive work proves again than the most crucial handicap on the system was NOT the color palettes but, besides the most obvious (tight schedules and coding skills), it was the rom space which seriously limited the end results. This one, SOTN, Asteborg and some huge romhacks seem to prove a point.

Umm.. exceptions to the rule are just that.. exceptions. The color will always be the handicap the MD. Rom space limits detail, not color. I mean that can be said of any system. What does Asteborg prove again??? Outside of throwing rom space at animation, there's nothing in Asteborg that's pushing the system that I haven't seen on the system before (or better). Art direction it's pretty nice in spots, but there's nothing impressive about the color usage on Asteborg. SOTN is just demo that has NO real game elements that it needs to adjust for (including colorwise). I don't want to take away from this hack's progress, because he's done pretty awesome work, but there's no need to post exaggerated/absurd statements haha.

[chilled]

Paprium and Pier Solar also prove you can do way better when not limited by rom space. Also some 4 MB Sonic hacks, UMK trilogy, Bad apple, etc etc

Also see THIS.

I always end up saying just imagine how Golden Axe would have been had it been a 4 MB cart instead of 0,5. Every arcade port was heavily cut down and I thought at the time it was because the hardware couldn't handle it, when it was instead mostly to save on rom space (and because of time constraints, of course)

[turboxray]

Paprium and Pier Solar also prove you can do way better when not limited by rom space. Also some 4 MB Sonic hacks, UMK trilogy, Bad apple, etc etc

That literally applies to ANY system, including home computers (have you seen the Atari ST Metal Slug demo???). If you want more detail, and more animation, you need more storage. That should be pretty apparent. If you want to see games/demos overcoming the color limitation on the MD - it's not going to be rom space. It's going to be clever optimization mixed with horizontal interrupts changing color per line (if the screen layout lends itself to it). Yeah, one color update per line to avoid dots can do wonders if done right (I think two color updates can be done with minimal dots on the side of the screen and a super tight interrupt routine).


Back on topic:

A quick look reveals Mortal Kombat screen layouts do lend themselves to this kind of color trick. Hopefully, Lin Kuei's up for the task. I mean, the game already looks beautiful with this hack as is.. lets see how far Lin can push this hahah.

[chilled]

it doesn't matter that it applies to any system (which of course it does, see Neo Geo for the opposite example), I don't see why this wouldn't make rom space usage the greatest handicap (over color limitations) anymore. Also of course using more animation means you need more space, I mean back then David Perry wouldn't have had such success had he been constrained to only 1 MB (as most platformers on the system are) instead of 2 and 3.

Lin is using 50% more rom space than the original port (which is great, I hope he'll end up using the whole 4 MB as many homebrews do today), that's why I started the talk about the importance or having bigger carts. Do not forget that with all the enhancement chips the NES got, it was breaking the 40KB limit via mappers what increased dramatically the quality of the games.

[Allard]

Here's hoping Linkuei won't step past the 4MB threshold.